A storage array or device contains a lot of information regarding a storage environment, which is comprised of a variety of components including hardware, software applications, and services. For example, the storage array may contain a huge number of snapshots, clone Logical Unit Numbers (LUNs), production or source LUNs, Business Continuance Volume (BCV), standard volumes, and other information. As a result, cataloging this large amount of information can both be time consuming and impact performance of the storage array. For example, a user currently needs to use storage Command Line Interface (CLI) or User Interface (UI) to browse snapshots, BCV/standard volumes, and clone LUNs. This manual process is very labor intensive, time-consuming and the information browsed is likely to be lost. This information, nevertheless, is necessary for backup, recovery and archiving (BURA), for storage migration to a new storage array from an old storage array, for identifying storage array configuration issues, and for optimizing performance of storage arrays and devices.
There is a need, therefore, for an improved method or system for cataloging storage arrays and devices.